Politics and Elections in the Netherlands: Rutte III era

[mvd10]

What on earth was the PVV even thinking when they signed up for 60 municipalities? They don't have members (except for Geert Wilders and the Wilders Foundation lol), there are no internal debates and they barely have local infrastructure so how were they going to find hundreds of good potential candidates? Luckily for Wilders FvD won't participate in a lot of municipalities. I wonder what FvD would score if they participated in all municipalities while Wilders stays home. FvD's party structure probably makes it easier to find good candidates for local elections.

[mvd10]

I wonder what FvD would score if they participated in all municipalities while Wilders stays home. FvD's party structure probably makes it easier to find good candidates for local elections.

FvD would also have suffered from tons of scandals like this one. Most people with Nazi sympathies and ideas like the ones Hegedüs espoused despise the PVV for being Zionist (and funded by Jews), but have no problem with FvD. While FvD are pro-Israel too, evidenced by their voting record in parliament as well as Baudet's social media statements, they have also won the support of a lot of people who are not kosher (see Erkenbrand, who adore him), which is unfortunately related to Baudet's alt-right dogwhistling (e.g. the homeopathic dilution comment, the Russia/MH17 stuff, De Haze Winkelman peddling the Coudenhove-Kalergi conspiracy theory, the memes). These people would love to run for their local councils at the FvD slate and could damage the party immensely.

What on earth was the PVV even thinking when they signed up for 60 municipalities?

Don't think they will end up running in 60 municipalities at all. There would have been more news by now if that were the case.

Yeah, Erkenbrand also likes Baudet because he is much more of an intellectual than Wilders, they dislike "dumb" skinheads and they demand a "certain level of intellectual capacities" from their members (say the guys who boast about using violence in their discord safe space).

But the FvD actually is an open party which you can join and which organizes a lot of events where members actually cay say things. They obviously can't run in all municipalities in the near future (unless they completely ignore vetting, which would indeed damage their party), but the FvD will have an easier time finding potential politicians because of their relative openness. Meanwhile the PVV is all about Wilders and doesn't have any members and it also doesn't really allow sympathizers to influence the party. It's hard to create a pool of potential politicians if you don't have any members.

[mvd10]

I can see VVD and CDA being open to cooperating with FvD if it's absolutely necessary (and like David said, VVD members are very flexible people unless they target our wallets ), but I can't see FvD working with the "party cartel" unless it's at their terms.

FvD third largest party and bigger than the PVV (though all within MoE) in today's Peil.nl poll.

Absolutely disgusting.

I find it hilarious. Seven parties virtually tied for second place : that's classic Dutch polling between elections for you!

Yeah, the Dutch public is rather volatile. At some point before the 2006 elections the PvdA was at 60 seats in the polls, they won 33. In 2010 nobody really expected Rutte to win the elections (it's a wonder he survived 2007/2008, the rest is history), in 2012 the SP collapsed from 35 seats to 15 seats in the polls (and the PvdA went from 15 to 35) and according to the polls in the months before the 2017 election VVD-CDA-D66-GL-PvdA was like the only serious option. And don't forget how many parties led atleast 1 poll in the 2012-2015 period. VVD, PvdA, D66, PVV and SP all led multiple polls at one point during that period (and the CDA won the European elections even though they never led a single poll during that period).

This graph is telling:


Next week the politician of the year will be chosen. Candidates are Jesse Klaver (GL leader), Jeroen Dijsselbloem (former PvdA finance minister), Klaas Dijkhoff (VVD parliamentary leader), Thierry Baudet (FvD leader) and Khadija Arib (Speaker of the House of Representatives). I'm surprised they didn't include Rutte, he won the elections by quite a big margin after all. Meanwhile I don't get why they included Dijsselbloem and Arib who haven't done anyhing noteworthy this year (especially Dijsselbloem surprised me). Baudet probably will win it though.

[mvd10]

How is Artikel 1 doing?

They changed their name into BIJ1 and they will participate in the Amsterdam municipal election. They might just win a seat as they got 2.3% in Amsterdam in the general election (thanks #woke VU students), but I doubt it.

[mvd10]

Baudet won the politician of the year award btw.

Meanwhile a Canadian diplomat gave a house in Scheveningen to D66 leader Pechtold. Pechtold has known the diplomat for more than 25 years and the diplomat retired in 2004. He didn't register this gift, but according to Pechtold he doesn't have a working relationship with the man, so that would mean that it's a private gift and that he doesn't have to register it. Still terrible optics.

The left-wing opposition proposed that employers should pay much higher social charges on workers with temporary contracts. Currently a lot of people in the Netherlands have temporary contracts, and while the coalition tries to stem this tide by decreasing the gap between temporary contracts and permanent contracts (by reducing employment protection for permanent workers and increasing regulations for temporary workers), but the opposition thinks the coalition is not going far enough. GL-SP-PvdA will probably introduce a lot of similar proposals the coming couple of years (before GL/PvdA wins big in the next general election, suddenly forgets everything and joins VVD-CDA-D66).

I've grown to think that the growing amount of temporary contracts might be an undesirable developtment after all. Employers tend to invest less in people with temporary contracts, so this should harm labour productivity and innovation. Then again, as a proud neoliberal VVD member I'd prefer making permanent contracts much cheaper (beautiful euphemism for slashing employment protection) instead of penalizing temporary contracts. Permanent contracts are very strictly regulated (too strictly imo), while temporary contracts are basically unregulated.

[mvd10]

Being a PVV politician really hurts your career prospects. In 2016 an anonymous PVV MP apparently told a journalist that he had to remain in politics, even though he wanted to quit, because he was afraid he wouldn't find a job because of PVV background. I'm not sure whether it's that extreme, but being a PVV municipal council member doesn't help your career.

I'm not sure whether FvD has the same stigma. Baudet or Hiddema is on Business Class literally every time I happen to watch it (don't watch it frequently though) so perhaps being a FvD member isn't as much as a problem for businesses. Then again, I'm not sure whether Business Class is that relevant lol. I'm looking forward to senator Harry Mens though .

A lot of potential PVV candidates also complained about the tight controls imposed by Wilders. Wilders wants them to almost exclusively talk about "de-Islamization", but a lot of potential PVV candidates (especially the ones living in municipalities with a negligible amount of Muslims) felt like this would force them to ignore local issues.

[mvd10]

William Moorlag (the PvdA MP with the shady constructions) might resign after all. The PvdA youth wing has collected enough signatures for an internal referendum on his position. Gijs van Dijk (PvdA MP and former union leader) defended Moorlag, which is hilarious as they got van Dijk with his union experience in in order to "claim" these issues (employers finding loopholes in labour laws).

Meanwhile Erdogan wants to repair relations with the Netherlands, he even called Rutte, Michel (Belgium) and Merkel "old friends". A cynical person would say Rutte and Erdogan were completely fine with the diplomatic row in March. Newfound nationalism and a rally around the flag effect helped Rutte to win the general elections in a landslide while it helped Erdogan with his referendum.

Only 32% of voters think Pechtold should have resigned because of the gift he received. The Telegraaf ran a story on how 70% of right-wing voters though Pechtold should resign, but luckily for Pechtold not everyone in the Netherlands is right-wing (yet). And they didn't even count the VVD as part of the right, if you add the VVD in you get a completely different number (only 9% of VVD voters wanted Pechtold to resign). D66 still lost 2 seats in the weekly peil.nl poll though.

[mvd10]

There have been problems with fireworks all over the country. Even as a right-winger raised in a relatively rural place I must say that I'm tired of it by now, maybe the call for banning or more strictly regulating it will grow now. Yesterday a man died in front of his children because he f**ed up with fireworks, but most of the victims are bystanders.

Also wanted to shamelessly abuse this thread for announcing that this will be my last post of 2017 on atlas, I have to get back to my parents and the oliebollen now .

[mvd10]

Sylvana Simons presented her list of candidates for the municipal elections in Amsterdam. It's a goldmine .

It includes a former occupy protester who got arrested during an anti-Zwarte Piet rally and wants to represent an "internationally oriented decolonized anti-capitalist world", someone called vreer (without capital letter), a 47-year old white heterosexual cisgender male bus driver born in Purmerend, Anja Meulenbelt (most famous pro-Palestine activist in the Netherlands, she left the SP because she thought they weren't anti-Israel enough) and progressive documentary filmmaker Sunny Bergman who blatantly admitted ignoring crucial details in her documentaries.

I actually am more #woke on some of their issues than you'd expect for a VVD member (though they'd undoubtedly see me as a posterboy of fascist white male privilege or so), but I don't think they are helping their cause. Still, a combination of #woke UvA/VU students and latte liberals might propel them to a seat or two in Amsterdam. Artikel1 got 2.5% in Amsterdam during the general elections (0.3% in the entire nation) and I believe they only need to cross 2% to get a seat.

The D66 youth wing will campaign against the "intelligence and security services act". The cabinet has said they will ignore the result of the referendum as they will abolish the referendum anyway. This might put D66 in a hard position because most of their voters (and their youth wing) opposes this law, while most of the VVD/CDA/CU voters support this law (especially the amount of VVD voters that support this law is ... concerning for a liberal party, peil.nl had it support among VVD voters at 85%).

[mvd10]

Kijken in de Ziel, a Dutch television programme in which a journalist interviews people from certain fields (like lawyers, doctors or journalists) featured prime ministers this time. Dries van Agt (former CDA PM) caught the most headlines. He criticized the CDA's new more nationalist course (he also said that the Netherlands has become too nationalist) and he admitted voting for GroenLinks (!). Van Agt is well-known for his pro-Palestinian activism, but he also was involved in some conservative think tanks in the early 2000s (some conservative intellectuals wanted to create a Dutch conservative party, eventually they thought the PVV was going to be that party but they left as soon as they realized Wilders' agenda didn't line up with theirs and the project died soon after that). To be fair van Agt backed out immediately when Wilders first got involved, but it's still curious.

[mvd10]

A SP+VVD coalition, dear god this is si trash

Local politics are much less partisan. Keeping the whole thing running is the most important thing. That could change in 2018 though, Amsterdam's seriously overheated housing market is becoming a huge issue and SP and VVD/D66 have big differences on that issue. There also are some VVD/SP coalitions in provincial governments. Literally nobody knows what provincial governments do (something with the roads I believe).

[mvd10]

I don't think Ollongren will resign if this fails, but it might be nasty for them. Then again, do D66 voters really care about their so-called "crown jewels" anymore (basically more democratization)? Basically ditching the crown jewels and becoming a generic centrist progressive anti-PVV party probably was a great move by Pechtold, the "crown jewels" were never going to pass parliament twice with a 2/3 majority (which is necessary for constitutional changes)

I wonder which former CDA/VVD bigwig who was last relevant back in the 80s/90s will block one of D66's crown jewels this time. In 1998 Hans Wiegel (charismatic former VVD leader who was last relevant during van Agt I in the late 70s but still continues to appear on television) blocked the referendum and in 2005 Ed van Thijn (Amsterdam mayor in the 80s) blocked the elected mayor. May 18 1998 became the "night of Wiegel" and March 22 2005 became known as the "night of van Thijn". I bet Eelco Brinkman (CDA) desperately wants to have something named after him, otherwise he'll be known as the 1994 CDA candidate who got savagely and spectacularly sabotaged by the incumbent CDA (!) PM during his campaign. He fits the bill perfectly.

[mvd10]

Her husband also wasn't very popular in Wassenaar (he was mayor there). That Wassenaar didn't have a VVD mayor for literally a decade already baffled me, but you really f**ed up when people in Wassenaar mockingly call you "baroness" and "regent" (then again, there are some less wealthy parts in Wassenaar).

Yet another prominent FvD member left their party btw. Bad optics for Baudet. Ollongren seems to be the far-right's new favourite scapegoat. I expected this role to go to Kaag, but practically nobody cares about foreign policy and Kaag has made just 1 controversial decision so far.

Cooperation between FvD and mainstream parties will be practically impossible with those comments by prominent FvD politicians, but with FvD's obsession with the party cartel cooperation probably wasn't going to happen anyway. Argh, we should have gone with VNL in 2017 .

[mvd10]

The 1-seat majority is a problem. Omtzigt also got away too easily, and the same might happen with van Haga if he doesn't want to give his seat up (if the reports about his behaviour are true I can't really see him giving up his seat voluntarily). There have been stories about this for weeks, but the revelations from the NRC article are much worse than what we already knew. I wouldn't be surprised if some parties decided to attack the VVD with this, the housing market is a big issue in Amsterdam, and a VVD MP being a "huisjesmelker" is bad optics. The VVD won 15% in Amsterdam during the general election, so I imagine D66 or maybe even a party to the right of the VVD can use this. Then again, I'm not sure whether VVD voters in Amsterdam(-Zuid) really care about this. The Amsterdam VVD often is perceived as being completely out of touch with (read: more left-wing than) the VVD in the rest of the Netherlands, but this mostly goes for issues like immigration and law and order.

Zijlstra's lies are terrible too. This probably will hurt Dutch foreign policy. We should have gone with Han ten Broeke anyway. Zijlstra would have been good at a law and order ministry or any economic ministry except for Finance but he doesn't have any qualifications for the Foreign Affairs job other than a random anonymous VVD MP claiming that he knew a lot about foreign policy and his travels abroad. This makes you wonder about his other stories (he once claimed to have witnessed a terrorist attack in Bogota, Colombia). Maybe he even invented the story of him being secretary of a racing pigeon club!

I guess this means that Dijkhoff definitely is the VVD heir apparent. I mean, we already knew it but after Schippers' decision to leave politicis, Hennis-Plasschaert's resignation and Zijlstra's gaffe it's pretty obvious that those three won't succeed Rutte. Dijkhoff also has been more vocal in the debate about Dutch cultural heritage. Seeing a VVD politician talking like a right-winger is quite refreshing, usually it only happens once every 4 years .

[mvd10]

More bad news for Zijlstra: apparently he didn't just lie about him seeing Putin speak, he also might have lied about what Putin said ("he gave his own interpretation"). Rutte has said that he supported Zijlstra, but we know that doesn't mean much (he also "supported" former Security and Justice minister van der Steur).

[mvd10]

I have 2 questions. (Sorry, I just haven't payed that much attention since the GE last year, though I went and read the entire thread today from the beginning.)

One, how has FvD essentially replaced PVV?
Two, when are the municipal and local elections and where can I watch them?

1.
I wouldn't say that FvD has replaced the PVV. In most polls the PVV still is slightly ahead of FvD, and they attract quite different voters. FvD is a form of "upscale populism" and ideologically there are some small differences. But Wilders is in trouble, and the recent problems with local candidates showed the PVV's weaknesses, but Baudet also has had some scandals recently
2.
March 21. I'm not sure where you can watch, but I'm sure someone will post a link to a livestream on that date. The same day there also will be a referendum on a law that granted extra surveillance powers to the intelligence services.

[mvd10]

Rumor has it that Ten Broeke has f**ked his assistent in parliament, in the chair of the Speaker, that there is CCTV footage as evidence for this, and that this is the reason why the VVD have viewed Ten Broeke as a liability. Retarded move if true.

why though

Where did you read this? I'm interested .

Anyway, I've heard two things about Han ten Broeke. The first story is that "something" happened and that he won't become minister after that (Berckmoes apparently also wrote that "something" happened in her book so it might be true after all, but I haven't read the book yet). I guess the "something" could very well be what you read, but lol. In that case Han ten Broeke definitely shouldn't become minister. The second explanation is that he and Zijlstra really, really hate each other and that Han ten Broeke won't become minister because of that.

[mvd10]

Was Berkmoes the assistant or just a source?

Reminds me of something out of House of Cards...

Well, she never said that. She just said that something happened, which can mean a lot of things. And Berckmoes was a MP, so she couldn't have been the assistant.

I badly want Hans van Baalen as Foreign Minister btw.

[mvd10]

RIP Zijlstra. There used to be a time when I firmly was on the Zijlstra-for-PM bandwagon. How things change .

My own list of potential successors:

Han ten Broeke (VVD MP, 2006-)
Extremely qualified and well liked across the political spectrum, but for some reason he already got passed over twice so I don't think he'll get it this time.

Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert (VVD, former Defence Minister 2012-2017)
She was meant to become Foreign Minister but the Mali scandal (young soldier died because of mistakes made the the Defence Ministry) forced her to resign, and getting a promotion literally 3 days after being forced to resign would be terrible optics. The scandal still might be too close for her to return to frontline politics, but that she remained in politics as a MP shows that the VVD still sees a future in her as I don't think she plans to stay a backbench MP until 2021.

Hans van Baalen (VVD, MEP 2009-)
Qualified, but perhaps a bit too "neocon", he'd definitely clash with Kaag (but that didn't stop them from appointing Zijlstra though). His move to the European Parliament in 2009 also looked a bit like a kick upstairs. It was during the aftermath of the Rutte-Verdonk clash and apparently van Baalen (a clear right-winger) was rather supportive of Verdonk unlike Zijlstra who clearly supported Rutte despite being very right-wing. Meanwhile van Baalen also got passed over thrice despite being very qualified for Defence/Foreign Affars

Barbara Visser (VVD, Defence State Secretary 2017-)
Too inexperienced so I'm pretty sure she doesn't get it, but that didn't stop them from appointing her as State Secretary of Defence, but that's a much less important position than Foreign Affairs Minister. Then again, she has 3/4 months of experience with Foreign Affairs, which is more than Zijlstra got . But she's an outsider, I think it's more likely they come up with an unknown VVD sympathizer from academia or the civil service (or maybe someone from the Senate).

This is my personal list based on guesswork, so I easily could have missed someone. No rights can be derived from this list .

[mvd10]

I knew it, I've read this story before!

https://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/zat-halbe-zijlstra-nu-wel-of-niet-met-poetin-in-een-buitenhuis~a4524949/

A Volkskrant article from 2017 already cast doubts Zijlstra's story. Why people didn't jump on this earlier surprises me.

[mvd10]

RIP Lubbers. He completely dominated the political scene in the 80s (his position somewhat weakened in the 90s as far as I know). Great PM who fixed the Netherlands in the 80s and 90s. Interestingly enough both he and Dries van Agt (CDA PM from 1977 to 1982) became much more left-wing in the last decade. Some people see Lubbers as the Dutch version of Thatcher, but he became active as a humanitarian activist after his premiership.

SP, GL and PvdA signed a pact with NIDA in Rotterdam to keep Leefbaar Rotterdam out. NIDA is an Islamic party. It might work in Rotterdam where 45% or so is non-white, but I don't think this is very smart as Islamic parties are extremely toxic among non-Muslims (95% of the Dutch population). If the PvdA ever wants to win the policeman in Tiel back they're doing it the wrong way. A "Hillary" coalition between minorities and educated whites might be possible in the US and some Dutch cities, but it won't work in the Netherlands where 85-90% is white (and educated whites always have the VVD or even the CDA anyway).

[mvd10]

I guess it's possible. In 2010 the PvdA was in Balkenende 3 and the coalition deal definitely wasn't a bad deal for the PvdA but they still polled at roughly 20 seats a few months before the election. In 2012 they had been in opposition for Rutte 1 (VVD-CDA with PVV support) for 2 years and they polled at 15 seats or so. Both times they got bailed out by a shiny new leader and a classic left/right horserace (VVD vs PvdA). Asscher definitely wasn't as respected as Job Cohen or as charismatic as Diederik Samsom, and there wasn't anything remotely close to a left/right horserace (economic issues took the backseat in 2017). A lot of the PvdA 2012 votes were borrowed votes that were bound to leave the PvdA (the same goes for VVD 2012). PvdA lost quite a lot of votes to D66 and even VVD/CDA, if these voters had voted PvdA in 2017 they could have won 20 seats, and I don't think these voters left the PvdA because it was too right-wing.

But I still think the coalition explains a lot of the PvdA loss. Perhaps Rutte 2's economic policies were supported by voters (but only in hindsight, in 2014 or so Rutte was really unpopular), but we shouldn't forget that D66/CU/SGP voted for most of Rutte's agenda, and CDA voters probably also broadly supported it. So I think most of the support comes from VVD/CDA/D66/CU/SGP/whatever is left of the PvdA, people who voted PvdA in 2012 and voted GL/SP/PVV or abstained in 2017 probably didn't really like the coalition.

In the first few weeks after the coalition agreement conventional wisdom was that the PvdA actually got the best deal, but in the end it was a lack of visibility that killed them as the junior partner always is going to be less visible than the party that delivers the PM.

[mvd10]

Stef Blok (VVD) will be the new Foreign Affairs Minister. No foreign policy experience, but he is the epitome of a safe pair of hands. I hoped for someone with more foreign policy experience, but Blok still is a great choice.

[mvd10]

The results of the VVD commission who researched controversial MP van Haga's business dealings as landlord will be published after the elections. Who would have thought lol.

Lately there also has been a lot of commotion regarding the proposed increased salary for ING Group CEO Ralph Hamers (from 2 million euros to 3 million euros). ING cancelled this after a lot of public outrage. Klaver even wants to regulate the compensation of CEOs of systemically important banks, but VVD parliamentary leader Dijkhoff already said he wouldn't support that law. Instead he wants the law to only cover banks who still are living off taxpayer money (which seems sensible to me).

Personally I oppose government intervention in these cases and some of the arguments of the ING made some sense, but I really wonder wtf the people at ING thought. Did they really think this would go over well? I also doubt whether Hamers would have left his position as CEO of a huge systemically important bank for some overpaid third-tier position at Goldman Sachs where he'd be like 350th in charge, only because 2 million a year wasn't enough. They lost a lot of customers and left-wing politicians already are angling for a law that would regulate these things in the future. Good job ING .

Former VVD leader Bolkestein said Rutte should succeed Tusk as President of the European Council in 2019. Rutte would be a great choice, but Rutte said he would remain PM the full term. Of course he can't say that he wants to be President of the European Council almost 20 months in advance, so a denial at this stage doesn't mean much.

[mvd10]

Urk actually has been trending hard to the SGP the past decade. Probably a result of the CDA collapse and the increased importance of issues like the EU and immigration, and on those issues the leftish CU doesn't align with the conservative fishers in Urk. Maybe the ban on electric pulse fishing will play a role. French fishers ran a campaign filled with unscientific and unsubstantiated arguments against electric pulse fishing and because the French fishers succeeded in their campaign Dutch fishers who successfully invested in these technologies are screwed. I imagine this doesn't help the EU in Urk. But Urk doesn't have a SGP majority in the council btw, there are quite a lot of local parties there. They don't even have a SGP mayor (CDA).